Evening Brief: A third of Canadians not covered by EI, new emergency benefit, study says

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The Lead

One third of unemployed Canadians will receive no income support from employment insurance or the federal emergency benefit, according to a new analysis from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

An estimated 862,000 Canadians will receive nothing from EI or the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB), predicts an analysis released Thursday that offers a picture of who is not covered by the safety net Ottawa has created for workers.

“There’s still people who are falling through the cracks,” said senior economist David Macdonald, who authored the study.

Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion Minister Carla Qualtrough says Canadians with disabilities will enjoy enhanced support from new government initiatives to help residents weather the financial blow of the COVID-19 pandemic.

For example, she said 70 per cent of Canadians eligible for the disability tax credit will receive the enhanced GST/HST benefit, which effectively doubles the maximum amount available to recipients for the 2019-20 fiscal year, because of their income levels.

“It’s really an important subset of our population that’s particularly vulnerable during this crisis,” Qualtrough said of Canadians with disabilities in an exclusive interview with iPolitics.

“So it’s really important that we do turn our minds to these kinds of issues. We’ve made sure that we’ve taken into account the needs and the interests of people with disabilities in all of our measures that we’ve delivered so far.”

The number of cases of the new coronavirus has surpassed 1 million globally, including confirmed cases in 180 countries and the more than 50,000 people who have died from the virus worldwide. (CNN)

A record of more than 6.6 million Americans applied for unemployment benefits last week, bringing the total amount who lost their jobs in March above 10 million. The COVID-19 pandemic has caused closures of restaurants, hotels, gyms, and stalled travel across the United States, completely erasing nearly all the jobs created in the past five years. (Washington Post)

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced a new bipartisan committee Thursday with subpoena powers to act as a watchdog for the Trump administration’s response to the pandemic and how it manages the $2 trillion that lawmakers agreed to disperse to Americans and companies to help the crippled economy. (Washington Post)

A memo submitted to the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee, meanwhile, says some of 60 million people in the U.S. who are eligible to receive compensation may not receive checks until mid-August or later, if they don’t have direct deposit set up. The IRS plans to make most of the first payments by mid-April. (Associated Press)

Thousands of poll workers who were supposed to help run elections including both presidential primaries, a statewide Supreme Court race and local races in Wisconsin are refusing to do the job out of fear of the coronavirus, causing worry amongst those still committed to staying on the job. (New York Times)

Here’s more of the latest on the pandemic in the U.S.:

New York City Deploys 45 Mobile Morgues as Virus Strains Funeral Homes (New York Times)

Shenzhen became the first Chinese city to ban the sale and consumption of dog and cat meat. The ban follows the outbreak of the coronavirus in China’s city of Wuhan, where it’s been linked to wildlife meat. (BBC News)

The European Union’s top court has ruled that Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic broke union law by refusing to take refugees to ease a burden faced by Italy and Greece in 2015. (BBC News)

Twitter deleted 20,000 fake accounts linked to the governments of Serbia, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Honduras and Indonesia. The social media site said the accounts were part of a “targeted attempt to undermine the public conversation.” (The Guardian)

The Kicker

Controversial Tiger King star Joe Exotic has been placed in isolation in a Texas prison after inmates at the jail tested positive for COVID-19, according to his husband. As NBC News reports, the Netflix documentary star is serving a 22-year sentence for animal abuse and his involvement in a murder-for-hire plot.